Concerns about the Fed

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/07/concerns_about_1.html

Surely it is not far-fetched to suggest that the U.S. faces a profound political challenge in using spending cuts or tax increases to meet its current and planned fiscal obligations. Here's an observation that brought that reality home to me on a personal level: in fiscal year 2006, receipts collected by the U.S. federal government from personal income taxes totaled $1.06 trillion. Thus, to a first approximation of what an extra trillion dollars in taxes would mean for me personally, I just take the number I paid in 2006 and double it. And then I ask myself, how likely is it that Congress would actually do such a thing? With budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars annually for the foreseeable future, it seems we are already well past the point at which the ability of the Treasury to fund the expanded liabilities through tax increases would reasonably be questioned.
................................................
That the Fed should find itself in a position where Congress and the White House are viewing its ability to print money as an asset to fund initiatives they otherwise couldn't afford is something that should give pause to any self-respecting central banker.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ben Bernanke - Incredibly Wrong

In general, economic forecasting is a waste of time and money. There is no evidence that economists or other "experts" can do it. However, if an official presents his views in public, his record should be examined.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ79Pt2GNJo

As Jim Rogers has said, if an expert's views have been consistently wrong for years, the correct thing to do is remove him.

Last of the tubular meat moguls

On July 8th, Oscar Mayer III, the last of the tubular meat moguls, passed away at the age of 95. On the evening news in Chicago an interviewer was talking to people about Oscar’s death and asking them the sing the Oscar Mayer Weiner jingle and the B-O-L-O-G-N-A song. What self respecting Midwesterner can’t warble those two famous ditties? Those catchy jingles and the Weinermobile® were marketing magic, making Oscar Mayer the top dog of hot dogs.


http://teicharchives.blogspot.com/2009/07/final-farewell-to-hot-dog-top-dog.html

Let's stop and take a picture.

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

MRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

-Wilde

Powered by ScribeFire.

Nortel Workers Threaten To Blow Up Factory Unless They Get Decent Layoffs

Nortel Workers Threaten To Blow Up Factory Unless They Get Decent Layoffs

Posted by

Tyler Durden

Liquidating Nortel has more troubles to add to its plate. Not only is the Canadian firm seeing a major push back to its liquidation plans by recently notorious private equity firm MatlinPatterson,
which refuses to go gently into that good night and write off its $400
million investment in the failed telecom maker, but now it has to deal
with its own employees who have threatened to blow up a French plant
unless they get preferential layoff terms. The Globe and Mail
reports that "workers had placed gas cylinders in front of the plant in
the Yvelines area near Paris, where 480 jobs are set to be axed
following bankruptcy proceedings."

Powered by ScribeFire.

Families are Great. :)

Where do you start? Dad's shorts, Bobby's homicidal fantasies (and Mom's enjoyment thereof) or Suzie's reverse goth-in-white look? This is a family we want to party with.

Powered by ScribeFire.

So let’s admit to a lot of uncertainty here.

As economist Laura Tyson said this week, “We are in a balance sheet recession. We haven’t had this kind of recession in the lifetimes of most forecasters. And by the way, the models that forecasters are using are the same models that missed the fact that we were even going to have this recession. So let’s admit to a lot of uncertainty here.”

Powered by ScribeFire.

Swap Your Cell Phone Contract

Have you had it with your cell phone company? They act like they own you, and once you signed that 2 year contract you have little bargaining power.

Getting out of your contract means paying an early termination fee, up to $250 per phone. For this reason, innovative companies take advantage of a loophole in cell phone contracts that allow consumers to transfer the remaining time to someone else as long as they pass a credit check. CellTrade USA ,Resellular.com, and CellSwapper help you find someone to take over your cell phone without termination fees, but the transfer has to be completed through your cell phone provider. To increase your chances, offer an incentive such as a free phone. Posting is free, but when you sell your plan, there is a $15 charge.

Before you sign, be sure to read and understand all the details . You are going to read all the fine print.:)

Definition: Pilger

Pilger

verb. To destroy facts in a 'John Pilger' fashion, to
'pillage' the truth, poor or no fact checking, wild accusations,
conspiracy theories etc..

(coined by Auberon Waugh)

The Sporting Spirit

"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with
hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic
pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words: it is war minus the
shooting. " -The Sporting Spirit - Orwell

What is the problem?

by J. R. Nyquist:

Imagine you are on the Titanic, and the ship is sinking after sideswiping an iceberg. Does it matter if you need a haircut? Should you be worrying about your investments? Under life-and-death circumstances, only life seems to matter. The trivia that clogs our existence is swept away by the sudden realization of what is actually at stake. In this sense, true philosophy is found on the deck of the Titanic. It leads us to discover what really matters; that is to say, why most things actually do not matter.

Powered by ScribeFire.

No warning signs? Property values doubled in a single day

From 2000 through 2008, thousands of Florida properties doubled in value in a single day, the Herald-Tribune's statewide analysis found. In some new subdivisions, investors from cold-weather regions snatched up entire streets of new homes. Many were back on the market the same day, waiting for the next speculator to come along.

Powered by ScribeFire.

What does this guy do for a living?

A Great Nation

From http://tinyurl.com/l2qkxk

by J. R. Nyquist:

In August of 216 B.C. a catastrophe occurred in Italy. The Carthaginian commander Hannibal destroyed two Roman armies near a town called Cannae, in Apulia. The historian Polybius recorded that 70,000 Roman and allied infantry were killed in a single day, with 10,000 captured and “perhaps” 3,000 escaping alive.

Livy described how the Romans had been previously beaten by Hannibal at Trasimene, “and now there was news not merely of another similar blow, but of a multiple calamity – two consular armies annihilated, both consuls [assumed] dead, Rome left without a force in the field, without a commander, without a single soldier, Apulia and Samnium in Hannibal’s hands, and now nearly the whole of Italy overrun.” Hannibal expected the Romans to give up and make peace. But the Romans continued the war.

After Cannae, Roman officers agreed to fight without pay as the Senate refused to raise taxes on an already over-burdened populace. Laws were passed against extravagant expenditure, but these were probably unnecessary as most women gave up their personal possessions and jewelry in order to boost the war effort. Such was the patriotism of the Romans that Hannibal was finally defeated and Carthage was forced to make peace. The Romans persevered through the worst defeat imaginable. They not only defeated Carthage, but went on to rule the Mediterranean world for many centuries. The quality of courage in adversity is here exemplified.

How does our country compare to the Romans of 216 B.C.? Take a look around. Observe what is said and done today. Then draw your own conclusions.

Powered by ScribeFire.

People with food on their heads

Self-Help Mantras Can Be Harmful

Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with. People who suffer from low self-esteem feel worse after repeating positive self-help mantras. Canadian researchers asked study participants to say "I am a lovable person."While this exercise slightly buoyed those who already felt good about themselves, it actually made the ones in need of higher self-esteem more depressed. In fact, low-self-esteem sufferers cheered up when they were allowed to focus on negative thoughts. The researchers believe this is because unreasonably positive statements can trigger frustratingly contradictory thoughts in those who don't really believe them.

http://tinyurl.com/lmc35v

Powered by ScribeFire.

Realtor Finds Body "It's a great time to buy."

Realtor Finds Body Before Showing Empty L.A. House

A real estate agent, who was showing a vacant home to a client, found a body in the living room. Family members identify the victim as Ricardo Contreras. Officer Karen Rayner said Sunday that the agent could not find the key to the three-bedroom house near Los Angeles International Airport in its lockbox and an employee was sent over to open the door late Saturday.

Rayner says it is unclear how long he had been dead.

Due to the potent odor, detectives put on gas masks before going into the home on the 8900 block of Kittyhawk Avenue in Westchester.

Police say an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

http://tinyurl.com/nfp7c7

Powered by ScribeFire.

Definition: Blurker

Blurker

1. noun. One who reads many blogs but leaves no evidence of themselves such as comments behind; a silent observer of blogs.

2. noun. One who reads many blogs but has no blog of their own; a blog-watcher or blog voyeur.

Usage: "But, Mikey, I can't have a blog of my own! I'm a blurker!"

". . . you feel LSD helped you creatively . . ."

Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I’m interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.

– LSD-inventor Albert Hofmann in a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Examples of Moral Hazard

http://www.unm.edu/~gleasong/a/notes/hazard.html


Consider the case of hostage-taking.If the US were to act humanely and
try to come to the aid of hostages of terrorists, it would encourage
terrorists to think that hostage-taking was a productive enterprise,
thereby possibly encouraging more hostage-taking. “Based upon past experience, the U.S.
Government concluded that making concessions that benefit hostage takers in
exchange for the release of hostages increased the danger that others will
be taken hostage. U.S. Government policy is, therefore, to deny hostage
takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other
acts of concession.”

Consider the case of bail outs. If taxpayers assume all the risk; there would be no market punishment for management inefficiency
or corruption. Publicly financed remedies for such tragedies as the Enron debacle change the incentives such that managers think the
costs of risk they take will be borne by someone else and, accordingly, they would be prepared to take bigger risks.

Powered by ScribeFire.

From Make Online - Cut It Out

http://blog.makezine.com

From 1976 to 1983, Popular Science magazine, along with the American Plywood Association, ran an annual plywood panel project design contest for its readership. Often the winning projects were items of furniture, but that was not a requirement. A potter's kick wheel and a folding plywood boat are notable exceptions. The rules were simple: Apart from common fasteners, the entire project had to be constructed from one or more panels of plywood, cut to make most efficient use of the material. In 1984, these projects were collected, by original contest editor Alfred W. Lees, into a book called 67 Prizewinning Plywood Projects.

1984, of course, was decades prior to the advent of accessible home CNC milling, so all those carefully shaped and slotted parts, at the time, had to be laboriously hand-cut using a jigsaw or similar tool. Today, the book is a rich, untapped resource for CNC enthusiasts. I scored a used copy on Amazon, and besides the projects themselves, the book yields a bumper crop of ideas for clever tricks to incorporate into your own designs.

From Despair, Inc.

http://site.despair.com/blog/2009/06/03/two-timely-new-tees/

Powered by ScribeFire.

Things are bad when ......

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says in prepared congressional testimony that he told Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News) Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis the Federal Reserve could oust the bank's management and board if they walked away from a planned merger with Merrill Lynch.

Paulson also said in testimony prepared for delivery to the House Oversight and Government Reform panel on Thursday that he was never instructed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to indicate to Lewis any actions the Fed might take.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Are you ready?

http://homequiz.net/index.asp

Powered by ScribeFire.

Proof-of-Global-Warming-Cools

Daniel Rice, manager of the BlackRock Energy & Resources Fund, is the best-performing U.S. equity fund manager of the past decade, according to Morningstar. He's also not afraid to speak his mind, especially when it comes to the subjects of global warming and alternative energy.Rice paints a "pretty dire picture" of the whole alternative energy industry, with the possible exception of wind, based on the following:

• Global warming patterns have reversed in the past decade, Rice says, citing studies by meteorologist Dr. Judah Cohen, whom BlackRock has on retainer. Ten years is microscopic in geological terms but "you'd better hope global warming is caused by man-made [carbon dioxide] if you're investing in these sectors," he says. "I think that's a huge risk based on some of the evidence that's been coming out."
• Alternative energies are not economical without major government subsidies or a large enough carbon tax. The cap and trade legislation currently being debated is "not enough to do anything," Rice says. "All it does is provide Obama a pass to Copenhagen" where the U.N. is hosting a climate change conference in December.

http://tinyurl.com/kq34mu

Powered by ScribeFire.

I bet typewriters are cheap.

from: gizmodo

NYPD officers are fed up! Their typewriters are broken down relics from a previous age, making police work more difficult, stressful and demoralizing. To remedy this, the city is spending close to a million dollars. On new typewriters.

It's easy to see what happened here: faced with a failing fleet of typewriters—used for property and evidence vouchers, and little else—the NYPD could either upgrade and computerize their entire system, possibly saving time, money and morale in the long run, or just fix and replace their existing equipment. For a variety of plausible and sympathetic reasons—upfront cost, time, lack of cooperation from the government, etc—they chose the latter route.

But don't let that tarnish the glorious absurdity of the situation for you. This a 21st-century big city police force, nearly all of whom own personal computers, that spends—and will continue to spend—its days slaving away in front of machines that the rest of the modern world only waxes nostalgic about.

Powered by ScribeFire.

risk and uncertainty

I was talking with a friend over lunch and was surprised that she had never heard of prospect theory:

Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky called their studies of how people manage risk and uncertainty Prospect Theory for no other reason than that it is a catchy, attention-getting name.

Kahneman and Tversky started their research investigating apparent anomalies and contradictions in human behavior. Subjects when offered a choice formulated in one way might display risk-aversion but when offered essentially the same choice formulated in a different way might display risk-seeking behavior. For example, as Kahneman says, people may drive across town to save $5 on a $15 calculator but not drive across town to save $5 on a $125 coat.

One very important result of Kahneman and Tversky work is demonstrating that people's attitudes toward risks concerning gains may be quite different from their attitudes toward risks concerning losses. For example, when given a choice between getting $1000 with certainty or having a 50% chance of getting $2500 they may well choose the certain $1000 in preference to the uncertain chance of getting $2500 even though the mathematical expectation of the uncertain option is $1250. This is a perfectly reasonable attitude that is described as risk-aversion. But Kahneman and Tversky found that the same people when confronted with a certain loss of $1000 versus a 50% chance of no loss or a $2500 loss do often choose the risky alternative. This is called risk-seeking behavior. This is not necessarily irrational but it is important for analysts to recognize the asymmetry of human choices.

Peter Bernstein cites an experiment by Richard Thaler in which student were told to assume they had just won $30 and were offered a coin-fip upon which they would win or lose $9. Seventy percent of the students opted for the coin-flip. When other students were offered $30 for certain versus a coin-flip in which they got either $21 or $39 a much smaller proportion, 43%, opted for the coin-flip.

Source: Peter Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1996.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Confused about Religion?

Santa Dreidel

Celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah with this 2-3/4" tall wooden
Santa Dreidel. Imagine the fun you’ll have playing the dreidel
game by the light of the menorah while you wait for Santa to climb down
the chimney with his sack full of gifts! Each side features a different
Christmas symbol (Santa, Christmas tree, candy cane, reindeer). Sure to
confound and confuse both Jews and Gentiles!

Santa Dreidel item 11880 $4.95 ea.

Powered by ScribeFire.

“Maybe Spain just remembered what to do when other people forgot.”

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Luis Angel Rojo, the man behind Spanish rules that force lenders to build reserves in good times to cover future losses, has a warning for regulators who may adopt the standards: They won’t stop the excesses of bankers.

“Spanish banks did all kinds of crazy things, even with this model,” Rojo, Spain’s central bank governor from 1992 to 2000, said in an interview. Nevertheless, Rojo supported extending the plan to other countries, “not just because it’s our system, but because I think it will work out well.”

Spain required banks to make provisions for losses when loans were granted, rather than waiting for them to go sour, giving them 23 billion euros ($32 billion) of reserves to draw on as boom turned to bust. The rules are credited with helping Spanish lenders avoid the worst of the writedowns and credit losses that have cost European banks $457 billion since 2007.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCtbBofkvyW0

Powered by ScribeFire.

No Brew

Remember The 40-Hour Work Week?

"Last week it was revealed that the average work week of non-farm workers had dropped to an all-time low of 33 hours. It's a worrisome sign that even with all the layoffs, employers aren't making their existing employees work more. So what happened to the 40-hour work week? Turns out, that's a distant memory."

outsource-for-leisure

From http://theincidentaleconomist.com/outsourcing-home-production/:

Adults in the U.S. spend an average of almost 4 hours per day on home production (unpaid housework and errands). Every so often I hear someone justify the outsourcing of such work (i.e., the hiring of domestic assistance) with an economic-sounding argument. The individual says something like, “Since my wage rate is higher than the wage I pay my housekeeper [or landscaper or whomever] it is cost-effective.” The speaker is arguing that his time is worth too much to be spent on chores. More concretely, suppose for example he makes $20/hour (after taxes) and he can hire help for, say, $10/hour. Therefore, for every hour he outsources and works, he nets $10/hour.
This argument could be valid but isn’t necessarily so for two reasons. First of all, it is important to identify what one really does with the time made available by outsourcing home production. If it is used for leisure then one is not making money by outsourcing, one is buying leisure time.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Painful Journey To The New Normal

The Housing Bubble Blog » This Bumpy And Painful Journey To The New Normal: "“Is it time to pull the plug on some of these wonderful sounding, and frankly pathetically ineffective, mortgage rescue efforts? A recent Fed study, detailed in the Globe, raises some serious questions about whether the Obama effort and the myriad of other programs like it stand much chance of even putting a dent in sky-high foreclosure rates.”

“After tracking hundreds of thousands of loans over a two year period, it found that only 3 percent of ’seriously delinquent’ homeowners were able to lower their monthly payments through loan modifications. And nearly half of borrowers who received some sort of help – 45 percent – ended up in trouble again down the line.”

“Did all the economists inside and outside the government get their diplomas off the Internet or from the back of a comic book? Friday’s newspapers were filled with stories about how surprised everyone was about the country’s latest unemployment numbers. And the smart economists didn’t see this coming? Huge jumps in housing prices, no consumer saving, consumer debt constantly rising. But no one thought that was a problem.”

“If we continue to rely on the people who got us here, we better expect to simply get more of what we’ve already gotten: trouble.”"

Funny and slightly depressing - perfect combination

1. What Does the U.S. Need?

http://illusionofprosperity.blogspot.com/

U.S. needs more bankruptcy judges: judicial group

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A judicial body is urging Congress to authorize new bankruptcy judgeships to cope with a surge in bankruptcy filings that has tracked weakness in the U.S. economy.

Well, there you have it. I knew we needed something.



2. Student Debt, Fool’s Gold?

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/student-debt-fools-gold/?em

From the article...

I’m an academic advisor in natural sciences at a 4-year state school; day after weary day I advise students with below average grades who have unrealistic expectations and cannot accept the fact that — contrary to what they’ve been told all of their lives — they cannot be a scientist or doctor.

Virtually every day I advise one or more students with “C” averages in math, chemistry and biology who persist in the belief that they will get into medical school, all the while accumulating debt and wasting time. I don’t even really have the hope that one day they will wake up; I forget who said that “most people can’t stand too much reality.” — Chris Silber

Smart Insoles

AT&T Labs has been working with Texas Tech University and a company called 24Eight
to develop a remote monitoring technology that prevents elderly
patients from falling. The result is an insole that contains
accelerometers and a radio that connects to the AT&T network. When
the accelerometers detect an unsteady gait that may lead to a fall, it
alerts the patient to sit down and the insole calls for medical
personnel. It can also detect falls and call for help immediately.
AT&T hopes to trial the product later this year.

http://gigaom.com/2009/06/05/7-gadgets-that-prove-the-cell-network-isnt-just-for-phones/

Don't Cry for Me......

Looks like the California state government is doing it's best to imitate overstretched, overborrowed governments like Argentina. Maybe there will be a musical like Evita, but with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role.:)

Powered by ScribeFire.

Pope condemns capitalism - Let's pray for him.:)

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/08/60856/pope-condemns-capita

Posted by Stacy-Marie Ishmael on Jul 08 04:10.

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday condemned the “grave deviations and failures” of capitalism exposed by the financial crisis and issued a strong call for a “true world political authority” to oversee a return to ethics in the global economy, the FT reported. The pontiff’s call for stronger government regulation was made in his third and eagerly awaited encyclical, Charity in Truth, which the Vatican chose to issue on the eve of the G8 summit of rich nations being held in Italy.

"His holiness probably regrets the loss of capital from selling papal indulgences... Ah the lessons of history :)"  praxis22

Powered by ScribeFire.

Chinese proverb: "To know you have enough is to be rich."

Larry Swedroe column:

The strategy to get rich (work hard and take big risks, typically by owning a business) is entirely different than the strategy to stay rich (minimize and diversify your risks, and don’t spend too much).

click for rest of column:
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/investing/blog/wise-investing/how-do-you-know-when-you-have-enough/550/

Retirement: Why Panama Is the New Florida

Panama's quality health care, low costs, and proximity to the states are attracting American professionals as a retirement haven
By
Michelle Conlin



Murdock and Johnson on the beach near their home in San Carlos
Prospective retirees: Panama wants you. The pitch? A plane ride just 2.5 hours from Miami enables the newly poor to swap a wretched retirement in the U.S. for one befitting a royal in the balmy Central American nation. Cash out! Emigrate! Feel rich! Panama—the new Florida.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_28/b4139054352321.htm

Truth or Fiction

A team of thieves that broke into an abandoned missile silo not far from the Russian city of Kostroma in search of nonferrous metals was shocked to find the shaft packed with Soviet money bills, Regnum news agency reported on Tuesday.

Free gmail with undo button

Gmail is always free, but you get some cool experimental features too. For example:

1. Undo Send
Oops, hit "Send" too soon? Stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button.

2. Sender Time Zone
Should I call back ? No, it's 1 a.m. for him.

3. Email Addict
Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.

How did all that rocket-science modeling for subprime defaults work out?

Bill King: “A major problem with the ‘stress test’ is it depends on modeling and it’s the precise practice responsible for much of this economic and financial mess. It’s extraordinary that so many people believe that the Fed and Treasury, after missing the financial disaster, housing debacle, recession and derivative implosion, can now extrapolate economic conditions and resultant financial effects from its models. How did all that rocket-science modeling for subprime defaults and securitization workout? Yet many people already forget or ignore this reality.”

http://www.investmentpostcards.com/

History of Smiling

Excerpt from http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/

A Note on the History of Smiling

JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 630 Blog Bookstore



I don’t know when the first illustrated advertisement appeared, and I don’t know when the first picture of a smiling human face was used in that in order to sell a product displayed in a mass market printed publication. My sense though is that the smiling, happy (and too-happy) face was first used in the first or second decade of the 20th century, but that the general, templated use of the eagerly over-sized mega-toothed smile topped by wide-spirited painted eyeballs came into play in America right after the end of WWII. The enthusiastic smiled-upon objects seem to become more slight and mundane as time passes, coming to a point fairly early on of the mysterious basis for this happiness over such modest products. The smiles and happiness brought by these items was surely short-lived, the smile becoming a fossil, a relic, to simpler times and simpler consuming needs.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Enigma

I don't know what this means.

Texas pesticide review board

Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway.
-- Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board

Sweet Tea

The Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville has craft items for sale in the Portico Market. Crystal sells silk screened t-shirts on the sweet tea theme. Stop by the south side of the Grove Arcade and get a t-shirt for that favorite nephew or cousin.
Check out Crystal's website too.
http://sweetteaclothing.com/

disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure

"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with
hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic
pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words: it is war minus the
shooting. " -The Sporting Spirit - Orwell